
I have been re-reading Howard Zinn’s,
A People’s History of the United States,
in which he recounts
“fugitive moments of compassion” that give us hope and remind us that
the
future need not be defined by history’s “solid centuries of warfare.”
The
admittedly checkered history of organized labor has played a vital role
in
shaping these “fugitive moments” and continues to do so. Organized labor
helped
our nation enact child labor laws, establish the eight hour work day,
strengthen workplace safety and bring about other changes that have
improved the lives of all of us. It
is important that we remember this history.

In Chapter Ten, Zinn shares stories of those years in the
nineteenth century when trade unions were forming. Tellingly this chapter is
entitled: “The Other Civil War.” Here we learn that in 1835 there were fifty
different trade unions in Philadelphia. These unions formed a solid front and
successfully fought for a ten hour day. But, Zinn reports, by 1844 antagonisms
developed between Irish Catholic weavers and native-born Protestant skilled
workers over issues of religion. Nativist, anti-immigrant rioters destroyed the
weavers’ neighborhoods. Unions divided and soon party politics and religion
replaced class conflict, “creating the illusion of a society lacking in class
conflict.” “In reality,” Zinn writes, “the class conflicts of nineteenth
century America were as fierce as any known to the industrial world.”
Class consciousness was displaced in part by religious conflict and
then overwhelmed by the Civil War. But, Zinn points out, there were strikes “all over the country
during the war.” He contends that in response to this situation, federal,
state and local governments enacted laws and regulations that benefited
commerce, businesses and landlords. Then, in the 1870s, an economic crisis
devastated the nation. Workers and the unemployed took to the streets. In the
centennial year of 1876, the Workingmen’s Party in Illinois wrote a new
Declaration of Independence. The following year, in the depths of the
Depression, the Great Railroad Strike began. It was, in Zinn’s words, a strike
that “shook the nation as no labor conflict in its history had done.” Zinn ends
his account of this strike on a somber note: “Blacks learned they did not have
enough strength to make real the promise of equality . . . working people
learned they were not united enough, not powerful enough, to defeat the
combination of private capital and government power.” Ending on a more hopeful
note he adds: “But there was more to come.”
Zinn’s book is worth re-reading, or reading for the first
time if you have not read it, because it teaches us that while going into the
voting booth is important, we must not forget or under estimate “the enormous
capacity of apparently helpless people to resist . . . to demand change.” Each of us can do our
part.

Individually and
together we create new expressions of what is possible in the places where we
live and work. Joining demonstrations, marches, and boycotts are ways of
strengthening our democracy. Writing letters, visiting the offices of our
elected representatives, and demanding action on issues like banning
the sale of assault weapons are important actions. We can work with our
neighbors to transform our communities, make our schools safer, and protect our
environment. The lesson to be learned from
A People's History, is that each and every one of us can help
create our own “fugitive moments of grace” by acting on our values in concert with others. Taking such
action is both validating and satisfying. And, importantly, it is our way of showing
future generations that we share a commitment to leave for them a culture of
sharing and respect for human dignity and for the dignity of the earth.
Rev. David Hansen
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